Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 465–471

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Personality and Individual Differences

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Chronic and offence-related factors and coping styles in offenders

Sharon Xuereb a,b,*, Jane L. Ireland a,b, Michelle Davies a

a University of Central Lancashire, Mersey Care NHS Trust, School of Psychology, Ashworth High Secure Hospital, Parkbourne, Maghull, Merseyside L31 1HW, United Kingdomb School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 17 July 2008Received in revised form 4 October 2008Accepted 18 November 2008Available online 1 January 2009

Keywords:ShameGuiltDenialDistressCopingOffenders

0191-8869/$ - see front matter � 2008 Elsevier Ltd. Adoi:10.1016/j.paid.2008.11.016

* Corresponding author. Address: University of CenNHS Trust, School of Psychology, Ashworth High SMaghull, Merseyside L31 1HW, United Kingdom.

E-mail address: sxuereb@uclan.ac.uk (S. Xuereb).

a b s t r a c t

The current study examined how chronic or stable factors related to distress and self-blame are associ-ated with offence-denial in offenders. The association of these factors with coping styles, a tendency torespond in a similar manner across various situations, was also explored. Further validation of the dis-tress and responsibility scale (DRS), which has previously been piloted on a sample of male offenders,was sought with female offenders. The sample comprised 545 offenders (349 men; 196 female) from fiveprisons. Participants completed the DRS and the coping styles questionnaire-3 (Roger, Jarvis, & Najarian,1993). It was predicted that the factor-structure emerging with male offenders would be confirmed witha sample of both male and female offenders. It was hypothesized that coping styles would be associatedwith chronic distress and self-blame, and with offence-related distress, self-blame, and denial. The factor-structure of the DRS was confirmed after some adjustments. It was concluded that coping styles help theunderstanding of the association between chronic distress and self-blame, and offence-related distress,self-blame, and denial. However, this model had a compromised fit, so it is suggested that the associationof the DRS factors with other personality factors is explored in future studies.

� 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Shame and guilt have been described as self-conscious emo-tions (Fischer & Tangney, 1995). They reportedly emanate fromsocialization processes, and foster adherence to social norms andmorally acceptable behaviour, serving to stop us harming others(Gilligan, 1998). Shame and guilt have traditionally been regardedas distinct concepts. Whereas shame reportedly makes peoplewant to hide (Lewis, 1971), guilt reportedly leads to apologizingand reparation (Tangney, 1995). In the shame experience, the indi-vidual as a whole is said to feel exposed (Fischer & Tangney, 1995).However, one is said to feel guilty about their actions, and not theentire self (Lewis, 1971).

These distinctions, however, have not been corroborated instudies that did not pre-suppose shame and guilt to be distinct.For instance, studies with drink-drivers found that attributes gen-erally thought to relate to shame and guilt merged under a singleconcept, ‘shame–guilt’ (Harris, 2003). A study with male mentallydisordered offenders also found that not all items theoretically pre-dicted to load on shame or guilt actually did so (Wright & Gudjons-son, 2007).

Denial is understood as involving various stages of accepting of-fence-responsibility (Salter, 1988). A review of the literature iden-

ll rights reserved.

tral Lancashire, Mersey Careecure Hospital, Parkbourne,

tified three types of denial, organized according to level ofaccountability taken by offenders (Schneider & Wright, 2004): (a)refutation, involving complete denial of the offence; (b) minimiza-tion, denying the seriousness of the offence or the extent of harmcaused; and (c) depersonalization, admitting to committing the of-fence, but denying offence-supportive beliefs. It is acknowledgedthat denial may serve an adaptive function for offenders, such asto avoid social exclusion (Rogers & Dickey, 1991), and that individ-uals who accept responsibility for their offence are reportedlymore motivated to seek treatment (Gibbons, de Volder, & Casey,2003). It does appear however that measures and studies of denialrelate exclusively to male sexual offenders (e.g. Schneider &Wright, 2001). There is thus an evidence-gap with regards tonon-sexual offenders.

There are thus difficulties associated with using existing mea-sures of shame, guilt, and denial. For instance, the test of self-con-scious affect (Tangney, Wagner, & Gramzow, 1989), whichmeasures shame and guilt, relies on scenarios, some of whichoffenders may struggle to identify with. Furthermore, existingmeasures of denial (e.g. the facets of sexual offending; Schneider& Wright, 2001) have only been validated on sexual offenders.These limitations highlighted the need to develop a new measure,which would be aimed specifically at offenders.

To this aim, a measure was developed in collaboration with 39international experts who had published work about shame, guilt,denial, and/or offenders, and/or had clinical experience workingwith offenders. A Delphi, which is a qualitative consultation ap-proach that aims to reach consensus (Fink, Kosecoff, Chassin, &

466 S. Xuereb et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 465–471

Brook, 1984), was used. This led to the development of the distressand responsibility scale (DRS; Xuereb, Ireland, & Davies, submit-ted). Preliminary assessments with an offender sample (339 men)specified three chronic/stable factors: ‘chronic distress and lowself-worth’ referred to chronic negative feelings, ‘chronic self-blame’ referred to generally blaming oneself for one’s actions, and‘emotional capacity and respect’ referred to a reported ability to re-spect others; and five offence-related factors: ‘responsibility andself-blame’ referred to taking offence-blame, ‘distress and rejection’referred to offence-related negative affect, ‘Lack of negative emo-tion’ referred to an absence of offence-related negative feelings,‘minimization of harm’ referred to denying full offence-responsibil-ity, and ‘functions of denial’ identified reasons why respondentsminimized offence-responsibility. This study also showed that asimilar factor-structure was reliable with sexual, violent, and gen-eral offenders, suggesting that there was scope for exploring thesefactors, including denial, with various offender-types.

The potential applications for this scale are manifold. The DRScould be used as a research tool to understand how offender char-acteristics, such as personality, associate with offence-related dis-tress and responsibility. On a therapeutic level, an understandingof offence-related feelings and their link with offence-denial couldinform therapists’ work to encourage offenders to take more of-fence-responsibility, while supporting them to manage offence-re-lated distress. This could serve to increase motivation to engage inoffence-related therapy.

Stress has been found to increase psychological distress (Banc-ila, Mittelmark, & Hetland, 2006), while coping reportedly aims toreduce the physical, emotional, and psychological consequences ofstress (Snyder & Dinoff, 1999). A comprehensive theory aboutstress and coping is Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) cognitive stresstheory, describing three processes: (a) primary appraisal, with theindividual perceiving that they are facing a threat; (b) secondaryappraisal, where they consider what resources they have to re-spond to the stress; and (c) coping, where one makes efforts tomanage demands that are appraised as taxing on the person’s re-sources. Thus the experience of stress is seen to depend on one’sappraisal of it, rather than objective properties of the stressor. Thishelps one to understand how different people may respond differ-ently to similar situations.

Individuals’ preferred ways of coping across various situationsare referred to as coping styles (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub,1989), which are reportedly generally stable. Indeed, evidenceindicates that coping styles can be viewed as personality traits,thus being stable by definition (Krohne et al, 2000); and also thatspecific coping styles fit with specific personality traits, which sug-gests stability (Watson & Hubbard, 1996).

There is some empirical evidence suggesting that, within foren-sic populations, specific coping styles are related to psychologicaldistress or denial. For instance, male prisoners who reported usingmore passive coping (e.g. avoidance) to deal with negative feelingsreported feeling more guilt, fear, and regret (Van Harreveld, Pligt,Claassen, & Van Dijk, 2007). Negy, Woods, and Carlson (1997)found female prisoners who used denial and behavioural disen-gagement to deal with prison stressors reported lower adjustment.However, benefits of avoidance-focused coping have also been re-ported, specifically in producing low anxiety (Gullone, Jones, &Cummins, 2000). It should be noted that while the first two studiesexamined coping with specific stressors (negative feelings andprison), the third study explored coping generally. Looking at emo-tion-focused coping, Gullone et al. (2000) found it to significantlypredict depression and anxiety. Ireland, Boustead, and Ireland(2005) found that emotional coping increased psychological dis-tress such as anxiety and severe depression in young and juvenilemale offenders. Furthermore, a model that aimed to explain theassociation among maladaptive personality traits, maladaptive

coping (i.e. emotional and avoidant coping), and psychological dis-tress, found maladaptive coping to be positively associated withdistress (Ireland, Brown, & Ballarini, 2006). These studies providea basis for further exploration into the link between psychologicaldistress and coping.

A conceptual link between avoidance or denial as a coping strat-egy, and denial of one’s offence can also be argued. Building on theargument that coping styles are stable, then people who tend to useavoidance or denial to cope with life generally may be expected tocope with their offence by denying it. Furthermore, Lazarus andFolkman (1984) highlight certain types of situations as lendingthemselves to appropriate use of denial as a coping strategy,including uncontrollability and unchangeability of the situation.These two factors represent a reality for offenders, underliningthe benefit of examining the association of coping with denial inoffenders. Furthermore, given the association between psychologi-cal distress and offence-denial (Xuereb et al., submitted), and alsothe conceptual link between coping and denial, the next step wouldbe to explore the associations among these three areas.

The current study sought to confirm the factor-structure of theDRS with a male and female offender sample, strengthening theuse of the DRS with offenders. This would signify an improvementon the currently limited evidence-base in female offenders. Sec-ondly, the study sought to examine the association among chronicdistress and self-blame, offence-related distress and responsibility,and coping.

The following predictions were made:

(1) The DRS factors that emerged in Xuereb et al. (submitted)would be confirmed with the whole sample.

(2) Chronic and offence-related psychological distress and self-blame, offence-related denial, and coping styles would asso-ciate together in a model that fits the data well.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

Three male and two female English prisons hosted this study. Intotal, 1550 prisoners were invited to participate in this study. Ofthese, 545 completed the questionnaire, which represented a35.2% response rate. These comprised 349 men (64%) and 196 wo-men (36%). Mean ages were 34.6 years (SD = 11.3, n = 511) for thetotal sample, 37.5 (SD = 11.5, n = 323) for males, and 29.6 (SD = 8.7,n = 188) for females.

2.2. Materials and procedure

This study was given ethical clearance by the University of Cen-tral Lancashire School of Psychology ethics committee and by HMPrison Service. Participants were asked to mark their consent afterreading the introductory information. Generally, questionnaireswere introduced through cell-door hatches while prisoners werelocked up, and were collected before prisoners were unlockedagain. Other data collection methods included asking prisoners tocomplete the questionnaires overnight or during workshops.

The questionnaire comprised three sections:

(a) Demographic information: participants were asked to statetheir sex, age, conviction, and sentence length.

(b) The distress and responsibility scale (DRS): this includedfour sections, namely ‘You as a person’ looking at chronicfeelings of distress, chronic self-blame, and emotional capac-ity; ‘How you view your index offence’ and ‘When you thinkabout your index offence’, looking at offence-related dis-

3.40CDLS

CDLS1

.78

CDLS2

.78

CDLS3

.71

CDLS4

.46

CDLS5

.35

CDLS6

.19

3.61CS

CS1

.84

CS2

.59

CS3

.69

CS4

.40

2.58

.25

Fig. 1. Confirmatory factor analysis output for DRS stable/chronic factors; n = 528, p < .001. Key: CDLS: chronic distress and low self-worth; CS: chronic self-blame.

S. Xuereb et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 465–471 467

tress, responsibility, and minimization of harm; and, ‘Agree-ment with charges’, which looked at functions of denial andasked how true (on a scale from 1 to 10) participantsthought their charges were.

(c) Coping styles questionnaire, version 3 (CSQ-3; Roger, Jarvis,& Najarian, 1993): This examines four coping styles: rationalcoping includes problem-focused techniques where oneactively seeks to resolve the situation; avoidance refers tophysically or mentally ignoring the stressor; emotional cop-ing relates to one’s emotions taking over; and detachmentrefers to distancing oneself from the stressor so as to assessthe situation. This measure has been found to have accept-able internal reliability scores when used with offender sam-ples (e.g. Ireland et al., 2006).

1 CS: Chronic self-blame.2 CDLS: Chronic distress and low self-worth.3 However, Browne and Cudeck (1993) argue that only RMSEA values higher than

10 indicate poor-fitting models. In view of this, and the fact that GFI and CFI indicate agood fit for the model, it was decided that further improvement on the current modelwould only be sought in a future study.

4 MH: Minimization of harm.5 RS: Responsibility and self-blame.

3. Results

Confirmation of the three stable/chronic factors and five of-fence-related factors was sought using confirmatory factor analysis(CFA). Item parcels were used, to control for individual items dis-torting data analyses. Item parceling accommodates for violationsof assumptions that the data are continuous and normally distrib-uted (Nasser & Takahashi, 2003) and also addresses the possibilityof low communalities in factor analysis (Kishton & Widaman,1994).

3.1. The structure of the distress and responsibility scale (DRS) overall

CFA was run separately for the stable/chronic and offence-re-lated factors. At the first attempt, the stable/chronic factors modelapproached good fit, but this was not quite acceptable: v2

(101) = 509.87, p < .001; GFI = .88; CFI = .80; RMSEA = .09 (.08–.10). Following an examination of modification indices (MI), thefactor emotional capacity and respect (3 items) was removed, aswere two other item parcels that MI showed to be problematic.Item-total correlations for these items were explored, to checkfor negative values. The item ‘I rarely feel remorse’, which loaded

on Chronic self-blame, had a correlation value of �.16 with the to-tal, and was therefore removed. Furthermore, covariances wereadded between two sets of item parcels: CS41 and CDLS12. The finalmodel, indicating a good fit for the data: v2 (33) = 52.65, p < .05;GFI = .98; CFI = .99; RMSEA = .03 (.02–.05), is shown in Fig. 1.

With regards to the offence-related factors, upon the first at-tempt it approached a good fit for the data, but did not meet accep-tance criteria: v2 (265) = 1263.17, p < .001; GFI = .82; CFI = .84;RMSEA = .09 (.08–.09). After examining MI values, the factors lackof negative emotion (4 items) and Functions of denial (5 items)were removed. Six other item parcels, comprising 14 items, werealso removed, since they showed high covariances with other itemparcels and/or latent variables.

The accepted model showed a fairly good fit for the data: v2

(40) = 116.19, p < .001; GFI = .96; CFI = .97; RMSEA = .06 (.05–.07),despite RMSEA still being slightly above the stringent value of.053. The accepted model, shown in Fig. 2, included covariances be-tween two item parcels: MH24 and RS55. The model was re-run,removing these two item parcels. The resulting model did not showan improvement in fit on the previous model (v2 (24) = 80.05,p < .001; GFI = .97; CFI = .97; RMSEA = .07 (.05–.08)), and thereforethe model shown in Fig. 2 was retained.

3.2. The structure of the distress and responsibility scale (DRS) withmales and females

Confirmation of these two models with males and females sep-arately was also sought. The stable/chronic factors model had agood fit with both sub-samples: males: v2 (33) = 51.15, p < .05;

4.08RS

RS3

.85

RS5

.68

RS6

.73

RS7

.58

8.94DR

DR1

.87

DR3

.85

DR4

.77

4.24MH

MH1

.80

MH2

.70

MH3

.68

MH4

.70

-2.77

2.09

-.22

-.17

Fig. 2. Confirmatory factor analysis output for the DRS offence-related factors; n = 528. p < .001. Key: RS: responsibility and self-blame; DR: distress and rejection; MH:minimization of harm.

468 S. Xuereb et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 465–471

GFI = .97; CFI = .98; RMSEA = .05 (.02–.06); females: v2

(33) = 46.71, p > .05; GFI = .96; CFI = .97; RMSEA = .05 (.00–.08).Confirmation for the Offence-related factors model was achievedfor males: v2 (40) = 76.62, p < .001; GFI = .96; CFI = .98;RMSEA = .05 (.03–.07) and for females (v2 (40) = 99.28, p < .001;GFI = .92; CFI = .92; RMSEA = .09 (.07–.10). These data indicatedthat the model was a better fit for the males than females.

The comparable weakness of fit with females possibly influ-enced the goodness-of-fit of the total sample. It is noteworthy thatthe statistic suggesting compromised fit was RMSEA, which hasbeen noted to be sensitive to sample size (Ullman, 2007). It shouldbe noted that this study included 338 males and only 190 females.Still, for females, RMSEA was under .10, and GFI and CFI were overthe required .90 cut-off, indicating that the model was notunacceptable.

3.3. Association between the distress and responsibility scale (DRS)and coping

The emerging version of the DRS was used for the remaininganalyses. Descriptive statistics are given in Table 1. They show thatinternal reliability for the DRS ranged from a .77 to .88, showinggood internal reliability (Kline, 1993).

Correlations among the confirmed factors and the CSQ-3 sub-scales were also explored, using Pearson’s r. This was done to dem-onstrate how the factors explored in this study interrelated.Results are presented in Table 2.

All factors except for minimization of harm had positive corre-lations with each other, though some correlations were of a smallmagnitude. The highest correlation was between chronic distressand low self-worth and distress and rejection (r = .63, p < .01). Both

Table 1Descriptive statistics for the sample split by sex and in total.

Males(n = 338)

Females(n = 190)

Total Sample(n = 528)

M SD M SD M SD

Chronic/stable factorsChronic distress and low self-worth

(12 items; a = .77)31.8 7.7 36.5 8.5 33.5 8.3

Chronic self-blame (6 items; a = .78) 16.7 4.7 17.8 4.3 17.1 4.6

Offence-related factorsAcknowledging responsibility

(9 items; a = .79)34.5 7.7 33.9 6.8 34.2 7.4

Distress and rejection(9 items; a = .88)

24.1 8.4 26.8 8.5 25.0 8.5

Minimization of harm(7 items; a = .80)

19.5 7.3 20.1 5.7 19.7 6.8

Coping stylesEmotional coping (11 items; a = .86) 10.4 5.8 16.5 6.7 12.6 6.8Detached coping (10 items; a = .61) 12.0 4.1 12.3 4.3 12.1 4.2Rational coping (10 items; a = .83) 18.3 5.9 15.8 5.6 17.4 5.9Avoidant coping (10 items; a = .85) 11.1 6.0 15.8 6.1 12.8 6.4

Table 2Correlations among DRS and CSQ-3 factors; n = 528.

CDLS CS AR DR MH EC DC RC AC

CDLS – .55 .15 .63 �.04 .66 �.09* �.22 .49CS .55 – .39 .56 �.18 .40 �.05 .07 .29AR .15 .39 – .31 �.58 .03 �.07 .19 �.04DR .63 .58 .31 – �.05 .56 �.07 .01 .39MH �.04 �.18 �.58 �.05 – .11* .07 �.11* .21EC .66 .40 .03 .56 .11* – .01 �.24 .71DC �.09* �.05 �.07 �.07 .07 .01 – .42 .24RC �.22 .07 .19 .01 �.11* �.24 .42 – �.19AC .49 .29 �.04 .39 .21 .71 .24 �.19 –

Key: CDLS: chronic distress and low self-worth; CS: chronic self-blame; AR:acknowledging responsibility; DR: distress and rejection; MH: minimization ofharm; EC: emotional coping; DC: detached coping; RC: rational coping; AC:avoidant coping. Significant correlations are presented in bold BB.* p < .05; all other significant correlations p < .01.

S. Xuereb et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 465–471 469

these factors assessed feelings of distress. minimization of harmhad negative significant correlations with chronic self-blame(r = �.22, p < .01) and acknowledging responsibility (r = �.58,p < .01). Indeed, these two factors identify individuals who takeresponsibility, while minimization of harm identifies people whodeny it.

The final step of the data analysis involved inserting the Stable/chronic, offence-related, and coping factors into a structural equa-tion model (SEM). Thus a more coherent understanding of thesefactors could be achieved. Confirmation of the CSQ-3 factors wassought prior to conducting the SEM, aiming to ensure that the fac-tor-structure was reliable enough to be used in the SEM. The fourfactors (emotional, detached, rational, and avoidant coping) weresplit into item parcels. One item was removed from each of emo-tional and rational coping, while two items were removed fromeach of detached and avoidant coping. These were parcels withhigh MI values, reducing the strength of the factors. Their removalimproved the fit of the model to reach acceptance levels: v2

(84) = 307.83; GFI = .95; CFI = .93, RMSEA = .07 (.06–.08).A model which included the DRS and CSQ-3 factors was sought.

The factors detached and rational coping were not included in themodel, as their introduction led to a very bad fit of the model. In-deed, these two factors had very low correlation with the other fac-tors (see Table 2).

The model, shown in Fig. 3, had goodness-of-fit statistics as fol-lows: v2 (10) = 120.62, p < .001; GFI = .94; CFI = .93, RMSEA = .15(.12–.17). While GFI and CFI indicate that the model has a good

fit for the data, v2 and RMSEA suggest otherwise. It was concludedtherefore that the model provided a close, but not adequate, fit forthe data.

The model presented in Fig. 3 demonstrated that chronic dis-tress and self-blame was associated with both Unfocused copingand offence distress and responsibility. It appears that both theserelationships are of a similar strength (regression weights of .77and .78, respectively, p < .001). Thus it seems that feeling generallynegative is related to maladaptive coping and also to how one re-sponds to their offence. Furthermore, unfocused coping appearedto operate through chronic distress and self-blame to influenceparticipants’ reported emotional and attitudinal responses abouttheir offence (Offence distress and responsibility). Unfocused cop-ing had a direct relationship with minimization of harm specifi-cally, and through it was indirectly (negatively) associated withacknowledging responsibility.

4. Discussion

As predicted, the structure of the distress and responsibilityscale (DRS) was confirmed with the entire sample. This resultedin two stable/chronic and three offence-related factors: chronicdistress and low self-worth, chronic self-blame, acknowledgingresponsibility, distress and rejection, and minimization of harm.The prediction that a model showing the associations among theDRS and CSQ-3 factors would achieve a good fit for data was notconfirmed, as the emerging model only approached goodness-of-fit.

This study offers positive indications about the integrity of theDRS. This is found in: (a) the negative correlation betweenacknowledging responsibility and minimization of harm; (b) thepositive correlation between distress and rejection and emotionalcoping, and (c) the fact that the structure initially developed inXuereb et al. (submitted) has been confirmed with different maleand female samples. Furthermore, while evidence of validity hasso far not been sought, internal reliability statistics were high forall confirmed factors. These findings encourage the developmentof the measure.

Despite needing some changes, the DRS factor-structure was re-tained, suggesting that its factor-structure is reliable with an offen-der sample. It is noteworthy that the DRS factors fit the sampleoverall and between sexes. This indicates that the underlying struc-tures of how male and female offenders experience general and of-fence-related distress and self-blame, and minimize offence harm,are similar. Thus it is acceptable to examine similar structures withmale and female offenders, even though they may score differentlyon the sub-scales.

Factors describing similar experiences shared moderate or highcorrelations. Participants who generally experienced negative feel-ings reported more negative feelings about their offence, and re-ported higher emotional coping. This is consistent with Gulloneet al. (2000), who, in a sample of male prisoners, found emotion-fo-cused coping to predict (and therefore speculatively correlate to)psychological distress. The current findings suggest that an emo-tional response to one’s offence demonstrates a general tendencyto respond emotionally. This supports the arguments that copingstyles are stable (Watson & Hubbard, 1996), in line with empiricalfindings that dispositional and situational ways of coping do corre-late (Carver et al., 1989).

Acknowledging responsibility was negatively related to chronicdistress and low self-worth and to distress and rejection. However,minimization of harm had non-significant relationships with thesefactors. This is unlike previous studies that found denial to corre-late with reduced psychological distress (Gibbons et al., 2003). Thisapparent discrepancy could be explained by closely examining the

ChronicDistress & Self-blame

CDLS

. 86

CS

.64

Unfocused Coping

EM

. 96

AV

. 77

. 77

Offence Distress &

Responsibility

MH

-.18*

AR

.28

DR

.98

.78

.22+

-.57

Fig. 3. Structural equation model for factors analyzed in this study; n = 528 Key: CDLS: chronic distress and low self-worth; CS: chronic self-blame; EM: emotional coping;AV: avoidant coping; DR: distress and rejection; AR: acknowledging responsibility; MH: minimization of harm. *p < .05; +p < .01; all others p < .001.

470 S. Xuereb et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 465–471

denial/minimization – distress relationship. Previous studies haveused one scale to measure denial, while the present study usedtwo (acknowledging responsibility and minimization of harm).This study may have identified detail that is difficult to pick upusing one scale. Specifically, denial/minimization may not affectoffenders emotionally, while taking responsibility could increasetheir distress, possibly because of increased awareness of the neg-ative consequences of their offence. Arguably, it is taking responsi-bility, not denial, which influences distress.

The current study also provides some evidence for the concep-tual link between avoidance and denial, in that avoidant copingcorrelated with minimization of harm. This supports Roger et al.(1993) view of emotional and avoidant coping as maladaptive. Itis noteworthy that avoidant coping also correlated with chronicand offence-related psychological distress, supporting previousfindings that avoidance is associated with negative thoughts, guilt,and regret (Van Harreveld, Pligt, Claassen, & Van Dijk, 2007). Thusavoiding difficult issues does not necessarily mean that one is nottroubled. Rather, in avoidance one relinquishes the possibility ofaccepting or positively reinterpreting the situations, which actuallycorrelate with adjustment (Negy et al, 1997). The current study

also suggests that rational coping is beneficial. Indeed, rationalcopers appear to accept their actions without suffering distress,possibly because they consider the situation unemotionally. Theseparticipants may have used cognitive reappraisal strategies to copewith negative feelings (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984).

The model describing the association between unfocused cop-ing, chronic distress and self-blame, and offence distress andresponsibility was not a good fit and therefore might not generalizeto other samples. However, it was consistent with offender litera-ture in demonstrating that emotional and avoidant coping associ-ate with increased psychological distress (Ireland et al, 2006).The association of Unfocused coping with minimization of harmsuggests that supporting offenders to use more adaptive copingstrategies could perhaps contribute to reduced offence-minimiza-tion. The current model also indicates that chronic/stable factorsinfluence offenders’ attitudes about their offence, highlightingthe value of further examining the association of personality andoffence-related factors.

This study is not without its limitations. Participants may haveconsidered recent and current experiences when completing thestable/chronic/coping items, despite being asked to think about

S. Xuereb et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 465–471 471

their life generally. Secondly, this was a self-report study, so re-sponses could have been biased to give a more positive or negativeimage of participants. Finally, participating in this study was vol-untary. This may have led to a ‘type’ of offender participating, suchas those who are less disappointed with the system. Such samplingerror could have influenced findings.

The current study encourages the continued development of theDRS, also highlighting similar factor-structures across sexes. It alsoprovided some understanding about the association betweenchronic distress and self-blame and offence distress and responsi-bility and personality traits. Since the SEM model did not achieve avery good fit for the data, it is suggested that future studies explorethe association of the DRS factors with other personality traits in-stead. It is also recommended that developing a social desirabilityscale as part of the DRS could help control for biased respondingthat is a limitation of self-report studies.

Ethical statement

This paper reports original work that we have done. Other peo-ple’s work that we refer to in this paper has been acknowledgedand referenced.

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